


Don't Think of Tomorrow

by alex_fangirl



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2019-01-23 14:40:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12509704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alex_fangirl/pseuds/alex_fangirl
Summary: After Sirius's death Remus and Tonks mourn in their own way.





	Don't Think of Tomorrow

Rays of sunshine were streaming through the windows and made the curtains – usually as dark as the name of the house itself – shine brightly. To Remus, they almost seemed to be mocking him on that summer day at the beginning of July. A sunny day like this couldn’t – no, wasn’t allowed to! – go with his inner turmoil. He would have preferred the sky to cry with him. A proper thunderstorm with dark clouds, with lightning and thunder and hailstorm would have reflected his feelings better. Would have hidden his own feelings better, as well. Simply by being stronger than the feelings of a single human being, _bigger_.

Hiding was what he was good at, but there were a few things you simply couldn’t run from; things that were too big, too important, too painful to hide from. If there had been a thunderstorm, Remus would have loved to hide behind it and maybe he would have felt understood by the world at least a little bit. But instead the weather was mocking him. At least it matched the rest of his life: a life mocked by fate – a forsaken life.

Shortly after Sirius’s death every member of the order who had come by had looked at me with the same look – a mixture of pity and embarrassment. The pity was self-explanatory – after all he had lost his last remaining friend from the old days… for the second time. He had lost weight and hadn’t slept well in days. The embarrassment resulted from all of that: People wanted to help but didn’t know how. Finally on that day in July he had been left alone just like he had wished for ever since the day in the ministry. But strangely enough he didn’t find the calm he had hoped for nor did his pain subside, now that he could think about all that had happened in peace. The house was empty and glum.

Heaving a big sigh, Remus turned his back to the damned curtains and the sun shining through them and stepped onto the hall. This house would always remind him of Sirius. All of the walls seemed to tell his sad childhood story and Remus imagined he could still hear his voice as if from a great distance. Unfortunately it was too far away for him to make out single words. He listened a bit more closely and realized that the voice came from the first floor. As if he was being led by an invisible power, Remus followed it, convinced that the voice came from a long forgotten time. A memory that only seemed real because he had spent so much time in this house all by himself.

The voice got louder, more real and lifelike it seemed. But then, all of a sudden, it fell silent. But even that didn’t matter anymore because Remus had reached the room. The door was ajar and it seemed as if there was movement going on inside the room. When Remus closed his eyes, he could almost see Sirius in the room. He would ask him what he was doing and Sirius would answer that he was bored as always because he wasn’t allowed to leave this hole. Then he would suggest to play chess even though Remus had a report to finish, but he would smile nonetheless for Sirius’ sake and answer, “Sure, I’d like to.”

Remus opened the door so quietly that the memory couldn’t flee. It wasn’t supposed to notice him because if it did, it would be gone the very next second even before he could reach for it. But when his eyes landed on the person inside the room, he couldn’t breathe for a moment. It wasn’t a memory. It hadn’t come that far for Remus not to be able to tell dream from reality anymore. His heart seemed to stop for a second and all he could do was gasp out a weak “Sirius!”

The man startled and turned around and when he recognized Remus, he said, “No, no, it’s me…”

That’s when Remus realized who was in front of him. Not Sirius even though he looked exactly like him. Slowly turning from man to woman, he continued, “…Tonks.”

Remus looked down embarrassed. He should have known that it couldn’t possibly be Sirius but in a moment like that, the brain didn’t function all that well. Tonks seemed embarrassed as well. She stared at her feet – something she never did.

„What… are you doing here?“ Remus asked in order to break the uncomfortable silence. But even as we was speaking, his eyes found the mirror on the wall behind Tonks, and he began to understand. And as he was looking at her a bit more closely, he realized that she must have cried. The eyes were slightly red and her nose as well. Remus pretended as if he hadn’t noticed. He felt strangely comforted at that moment – he wasn’t the only one mourning Sirius’s death. He wasn’t the only one who had trouble dealing with it. After all, Sirius had been Nymphadora’s cousin and her favorite cousin at that.

Tonks still hadn’t answered. She seemed to know that Remus already knew the answer anyway. Why should she say something both of them already knew?

“Could you… could you change back?” Remus asked her quietly.

Tonks shook her head, snuffling a bit.

Remus was a bit dumbstruck, a bit surprised and it all seemed more and more like dream to him. Nymphadora usually did what he asked her to. He didn’t often ask her to do something but when he did, she smiled her own special kind of smile. The one he recognized even if she had just turned herself into a small child, an old grandma, a man or a woman. And then she did what he had asked her. Without exception. Not this time.

“Why not?“ Remus asked angrily. “Why am I not allowed to see him?” He almost startled himself when he heard his own aggressive voice. But that didn’t deter him from yelling at her some more: “Why should you be able to see him whenever you want to, and I will never be able to see him again? I’m sick of it! Sick of only seeing Sirius in my imagination anymore. I want to really _see_ him, touch him, talk to him, dammit!”

Remus was known to never curse, never be quick-tempered or hurtful. Never. Now he was and he felt strange because it just wasn’t him. The next moment he was sorry for all he had said and wished he could take back his words. Tonk’s expression hadn’t changed, she had stayed calm. She seemed to be made out of stone but Remus knew he must have hurt her.

“I am sorry… I am so sorry, Nymphadora. I am so sorry,“ he babbled and only then did he realize that he had grabbed her. He quickly let go of her arms and took a step back.

“No need to be sorry, Remus,” Tonks replied and she sounded sincere. “I understand.”

With those words she took a step closer to him and put an arm on Remus’ shoulder. This friendly touch was worth more to Remus than all the compassionate words of all the members of the order combined. Nevertheless he interrupted her by taking another step back. He couldn’t explain why, even to himself.

Tonks looked him in the eyes. She had chocolate brown eyes today. Remus supposed that was her natural eye color because she only had chocolate brown eyes when she was angry or sad or overwhelmed by another emotion. He had once read that metamorphmagi automatically took on their true form when they were most emotional.

Finally, after seemingly an eternity had passed in which she had looked at him with a serious expression on her face, she added, “It just isn’t good, seeing him and knowing that he will never return. Trust me.”

Remus nodded.

“All it does is make the pain worse. You should remember him the way he was.”

He nodded again.

“You won’t gain anything. You might only lose something,” Tonks repeated. It was as if she wanted to convince him, as if it were very important to her for him to understand and that was the only reason he nodded for a third time.

Maybe to make up for his outburst as well, but he also felt it wasn’t necessary to make up for it anymore. And that was typical for Tonks, too: She was very forgiving.

“I hurt as well, you know,” she added, her voice so quiet he could hardly hear her. “Every day.”

She almost seemed vulnerable and he felt a bit sorry for her. Sorry for having broken the physical contact. He had thought the hand on his shoulder had been for his sake, but now he began to wonder if it hadn’t been for her’s.

“But it always hurts more, after. When I have seen him in the mirror. Because I’m _not_ Sirius, I only look like him.”

Remus, still unable to talk, nodded yet again. They just stood there for a while. Tonks had finished her talk and was probably waiting for him to say something again. But he didn’t trust his voice. Not yet.

When he finally risked it, his voice did indeed sound a bit rusty. “Would you still… just one last time… for me?”

He was surprised about the question himself. He hadn’t planned on asking it. He had wanted to ask her if she wanted a coffee or… something. He had understood what Tonks had wanted to say, about the pain getting worse after, but somehow he thought all of that wasn’t important because his pain simply couldn’t get any worse.

His brain advised him against it but it was one of the first times that he listened to his heart and his heart was breaking, still breaking into a million pieces, and it said seeing Sirius even one last time, even though it wasn’t Sirius at all – that would be worth it. If he could just forget about tomorrow. Tomorrow, when the pain would come back and drown him, maybe worse than ever, worse than even now.

Even while he was asking Remus felt like the worst kind of scum, asking her to do that, and even before she answered, he knew she would say yes. If nothing else then for the universe to realign itself: When Remus John Lupin asks Tonks to do something, Nymphadora Tonks smiles her Tonks smile and does it for him. Knowing that Tonks would hurt as well, Remus let his eyes do the talking. And his eyes were saying the same thing he’d told himself, “Don’t think of tomorrow.”

Tonks seemed to understand because her answer was to change into her cousin – one last time. The only thing that was a bit unnerving was that the smile wasn’t there this time. For a moment Remus was just looking at her. Then he asked, his voice hoarse, “Do you want to play chess?”

And Sirius answered with a smile – the smile Remus had been waiting for but couldn’t for the life of him tell who it belonged to at that moment, “Sure.”


End file.
